Lucky Dog Academy

Communication with Heather was poor unless it was for payment. We learned some reasonable tools, but simply weren't having any luck using treats and their techniques for training. We also struggled getting our questions answered when wanting to try a different class. The trainer uses cooked hotdog, which made our treats look like garbage in comparison. This made it difficult to keep our dogs attention, which isn't normally an issue. We learned some things in puppy class. But we found much more effective techniques elsewhere for our working breed that gave us the tools to cope with his nature and energy. My main problem is the communication issues. It takes days or weeks to get responses from Heather. We emailed her about possibly switching to another class. It's now two weeks later and Heather still did not responded to our questions. We again, were confronted with a defensive stance over our frustration with their training and no answer to our questions and concerns. Only claims of no refunds(we weren't asking for one) and no transfers. They really aren't cooperative with customers and make everything more difficult than it needs to be. We weren't having luck and wanted help. We are out almost $300 on Lucky Dog and will never reccomend them. We wanted to continue here, but there were just so many things that turned us off that it just didn't feel like it was worth the frustration. They weren't helpful when we were struggling with their techniques. Just repeating the same advice, not adjusting to the needs and behavior of the dog and our frustration. After doing one full class and part of another I can tell you that the methods weren't effective despite spending every day working on it with my dog. People dropping out of classes is an obviously common occurrence. The trainer even told me about all the classes that people simply don't show up for.after the first few weeks. A single private lesson with a different technique was far more effective than 8 or 10 weeks with Lucky Dog in a group. The trainer just talks about her dogs the whole time. It drove us crazy.